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So Close, And Yet So Argh

Authors, please trust your readers to fill in the uneventful crannies in the story. It’s what keeps their brains busy. If you have an important scene at a school, and then later something plotty happens at the hero’s home …

You could write:

The school scene

The hero gets into the car

The hero drives home

The hero gets out of his car

The hero walks from his car into his home

The hero tootles around his house for a while

Maybe the hero will go for a quick run before dinner!

And take a shower after, of course

The home scene

But I would love you more if you wrote:

The school scene

The home scene

Yes, this is about a particular book. No, I’m not going to rag on it here.

For a book that does a good job of keeping near-real-time narrative interesting, try Wool.